Execution Watch: Douglas Feldman, July 31

By ExecutionWatch.orgHUNTSVILLE, Texas — Prison officials are preparing for the execution Wednesday of Douglas Feldman, a Dallas-area financial analyst who argued on appeal that his court-appointed attorneys were ineffective because they failed to give the jury evidence of his bipolar disorder.

Unless Feldman receives a stay, Execution Watch will provide live radio coverage, background and commentary on the state killing. Updates in the days and hours leading up to the execution may be accessed by Liking the Execution Watch Facebook page.

DOUGLAS FELDMAN, 55, convicted of shooting to death two truck drivers in separate road-rage incidents in 1998. A federal appeals court in September rejected Feldman’s appeal. He argued that qualified jurors had been improperly excluded from the jury pool, his attorney failed to present readily available evidence of his bipolar disorder, and the trial judge wrongly did not let jurors consider a lesser charge of murder, which would have spared his life.

SHOW LINEUP

Host: RAY HILL, an ex-convict and activist who founded — and hosted for 30 years — The Prison Show on KPFT. His internet radio show airs each Wednesday at 2 PM CT.: hmsnetradio.org.

Legal Analyst: JIM SKELTON, a legal educator, retired attorney and native Texan who has seen capital trials from both the prosecution and defense tables. Joining him will be Houston criminal defense attorneys SUSAN ASHLEY,LARRY DOUGLAS,MICHAEL GILLESPIE & JACK LEE.

Featured Interview: PROF. FRANKLIN ZIMRING, William G. Simon Professor of Law and Wolfen Distinguished Scholar, University of California-Berkeley School of Law. In a recently published essay, “The Death Penalty’s Dirty Little Secret,” he decried the perverse incentive that Texas and other death-penalty states have to appoint less-than-adequate counsel for the nearly invariably poor defendants charged with capital crimes. www.law.berkeley.edu.